Francisco Gonzalez-Lima, Ph.D.

Francisco Gonzalez-Lima, Ph.D., is a courtesy professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. He also holds the George I. Sanchez Centennial Professorship at The University of Texas at Austin, where he is a professor in the departments of Psychology, Psychiatry, Pharmacology and Toxicology and the Institute for Neuroscience.

Gonzalez-Lima’s teaching experience includes undergraduate, medical, graduate and postdoctoral students, and he currently teaches the core graduate course in Functional Neuroanatomy. Gonzalez-Lima has been the research adviser of 22 Ph.D. students at UT Austin, and his trainees are world leaders in brain research on the relationship between brain energy metabolism, memory and neurobehavioral disorders.

Gonzalez-Lima graduated with honors from Tulane University in New Orleans with a Bachelor of Science in biology and Bachelor of Arts in psychology, and he earned his doctorate in anatomy and neurobiology from the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine, which honored him with a Distinguished Alumnus Award. He completed postdoctoral training (behavioral neuroscience) at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany, as an Alexander von Humboldt research fellow.

Gonzalez-Lima has been a visiting neuroscientist in Germany, England, Canada and Spain and he has delivered more than 120 invited lectures about his brain research around the world. His research has been funded for more than 30 years with federal and private funds, and he has contributed to more than 350 scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals, conference proceedings, chapters and books.

Current research in the Gonzalez-Lima laboratory focuses on the beneficial neurocognitive and emotional effects of noninvasive human brain stimulation in healthy, aging and mentally ill populations. This research primarily uses transcranial infrared laser stimulation and multimodal imaging (EEG, fNIRS and fMRI) in collaboration with colleagues at UT Austin, The University of Texas at Arlington and University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Gonzalez-Lima supervises and trains students and residents to contribute to these ongoing brain research projects.